


how joker and crow survived the coronavirus pandemic of 2020

by shantealeaves



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Coronavirus, M/M, P5R Spoilers, Pandemics, Quarantine, References to Depression, sexual references but no explicit sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24888355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shantealeaves/pseuds/shantealeaves
Summary: “It’s weird,” Akira says. “You’d think that I’d be used to huge, world-changing events that are totally out of my control by now.”“No, those were always about you in the end, too,” Goro says. “Even when the stakes were the world’s survival based on an all-powerful god’s whims, it ultimately came down to you and me, didn’t it?” He shrugs. “For once, the world ending isn’t about us at all."(Escaping from Maruki's false reality gets interrupted by the Coronavirus pandemic.)
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 56
Kudos: 427
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	how joker and crow survived the coronavirus pandemic of 2020

**Author's Note:**

> i did no research into japan's coronavirus response, please forgive me

When Maruki told Akira to take the week to experience his friends’ new realities before deciding to destroy them, Goro knew it would be emotionally difficult for the soft-hearted bastard. He just didn’t expect it would be quite so _logistically_ difficult, too.

“I’m so sorry, Akira-kun,” Haru says, her voice tinny and somehow even mousier over speakerphone. “I’d love to show you where Father and I have started looking as preliminary cafe locations, but for Father’s health we’ve been advised to stay at home. No one seems sure how bad this virus is going to be, but it seems better to be cautious. And,” she adds sadly, “I’m not sure that now is quite the right time to discuss opening a cafe, either.”

Akira is lounging on Goro’s couch, lazily holding his phone above his face. Goro assumes Akira’s kept the speakerphone on to amuse him, and, he’ll admit, he’s fairly amused: the infallible, ever-popular Akira, turned down by his friends one-by-one. And all it took was a global pandemic.

“That’s okay, Haru,” Akira says. “I know your father’s health has to come first.”

“Thank you!” Haru says, and her voice is positively beaming, as if Akira’s done something tremendously kind by showing some basic respect for Okumura’s life. Though perhaps Goro shouldn’t be one to talk when it comes to valuing Okumura’s life.

They exchange some more sickeningly sweet small talk, and Goro has long since grown bored of the conversation, so he goes back to flipping through the news on his phone.

Of course, there’s nothing in the news about the citizens of Tokyo being plunged into a horrifying alternate reality by a megalomaniac therapist, and everything about the citizens of Tokyo being plunged into a horrifying alternate reality by the coronavirus. Stores are running out of hand sanitizer and face masks and toilet paper as everyone stockpiles without knowing exactly they need to stockpile for; people shy away from anyone who so much as coughs on the subway; and no one, quite yet, seems to know what this coronavirus thing will become.

Maybe, a good number of optimists say, it’s all being blown out of proportion, and within a few weeks everyone will be laughing at how much panic there was over nothing. Maybe, an equal number of pessimists say, nothing will ever be the same again.

For Goro, who has a months-long gap in his memories and is 99% sure he isn’t really alive at this point, it’s honestly fine either way.

Akira, though—he doesn’t seem to be taking any of this well, the alternate-reality parts or the virus parts. 

“Well,” Akira says, hanging up his phone and rolling himself up to a seated position. He’s really gotten comfortable here, hasn’t he. “That’s officially all the Phantom Thieves accounted for and not willing to meet up.”

“Strange that they’re all suddenly showing aversion to risk and an awareness of the basics of personal safety. Perhaps we should let Maruki know of this unintended consequence of actualization.”

“I know you’re just being an asshole, but...you’re right,” Akira says. “I mean, even Ryuji turned down an offer to go running, saying the track team’s told them to switch to individual workouts now. And I have never heard Ann turn down an offer to get crepes.”

It’s Friday, and per Maruki’s instructions, Akira has been trying to reach out to his friends. He managed to grab Futaba on Tuesday, and got to meet Wakaba Isshiki as well, which Goro isn’t sure how to feel about. Fine, probably; he should feel fine about it, because she’s only as alive as he is now, or he’s just as dead as she is, or something.

On Wednesday, Akira met up with Yusuke, who apparently looked like he’d been locked away in his painting cave since the New Year and, when asked how he was feeling about the pandemic, looked perplexed and asked what a COVID was. So. Perhaps even actualization couldn’t fix whatever was wrong with Yusuke in the first place.

Goro, meanwhile, has been doing research to try to figure out what Maruki’s angle is and what they’re up against. It’s been a lot of internet sleuthing, a few visits to the university, and a rather uncomfortable call to the Yoshizawa girl’s parents. 

And all the while, as he walks the streets of Tokyo, he tries to disentangle whether the weirdness he feels is coming from Maruki’s alternate reality, or the pandemic.

Wasn’t this supposed to be a reality where everyone was happy?

Because it sure isn’t happiness that Goro sees in Tokyo these days. It isn’t abject pain, either; so far, the death toll in Japan has been low, and no one feels, personally, like the virus is quite _here_ yet. But there’s a simmering anxiety pulsing through the streets nevertheless, as every day the death toll in China rises and people wonder, _are we next_? There’s no official guidance for exactly how seriously to take this, but whoever can work from home is doing so, and though shops and restaurants are still open, it’s all mask-clad customers who don't seem to know if they should really be there.

Truly, Goro has more pressing concerns right now; this world doesn’t matter at all, he keeps telling himself. But even he isn’t immune to the uneasiness.

“So,” Akira says, standing up and stretching. “What should we do instead?”

“ _We_ do not have any plans. I, on the other hand, was going to go for a bike ride in the park.”

“Nah, I’m feeling darts.”

And meanwhile, as reality hovers in a state of existential uncertainty and a new virus is silently making its way across the world, the most remarkable thing is that Akira Kurusu has been spending a _lot_ of time at Goro’s apartment.

_It just makes me a little uncomfortable,_ Akira had said when he called Goro up on Tuesday after spending the morning with Futaba and Wakaba and Sakura. Everyone else had their own reality, and while Akira thinks he’d managed to at least plant a seed of doubt in Futaba’s head, that didn’t mean he knew any better where he should fit into the world she was still in. So, he’d told Goro, he wouldn’t push too hard until they got answers from Maruki. And for now, he said, he felt more comfortable with the only other person who knew what was going on.

It feels a little guilty to let Akira derive comfort from Goro’s supposed lucidity and existence, neither of which he feels very confident about. Regardless, it’s...nice. Having Akira around.

So Goro lets out a dramatic sigh and pulls on a face mask to hide his smile. “Fine. Darts it is. Who knows how much longer Penguin Sniper will be open, after all.”

Goro gets his answer in the middle of a game of 701—in the middle, actually, of Goro’s shot, what was supposed to be his sixth inner-bullseye in a row—when a siren-like noise comes on from the TV and startles him into throwing early.

“The city of Tokyo has announced a state of emergency,” a voice announces, as text to the same effect scrolls across the screen. “As of tomorrow, all Tokyo schools are advised to close until further notice. As of tomorrow, all non-essential businesses are advised to close until further notice. As of tomorrow, all non-essential employees are advised to work remotely if possible. All members of the public are advised to stay at home when not absolutely necessary. Anyone who suspects they might have had contact with anyone who has contracted the coronavirus should quarantine themselves...”

The announcement goes on and on. When Goro turns to Akira and finds him already staring, wide-eyed, at Goro, he thinks they both must be realizing that their reality-saving plans aren’t going according to schedule.

They listen through the end of the announcement, and listen again when it repeats.

Finally, Akira breaks the silence, smirking as he says, "Nice shot."

Goro turns to the darts board, where his last shot had landed perfectly on the single one.

“Hey, kids, get out of here,” the owner says. “We’re closing.”

“The announcement said all these changes were ‘as of tomorrow,’” Akira starts, and it’s oddly satisfying when the owner glowers so harshly that it shuts even Akira up.

They pack up their things. They were the only ones in Penguin Sniper, anyway.

It’s dark and bitterly cold by the time they exit onto the Kichijoji streets. Akira’s shielding his face from the wind by tucking it down into his coat’s collar, and that, combined with his face mask, makes whatever he’s trying to say to Goro absolutely impossible to hear. Goro doesn’t bother asking Akira to repeat himself; if he’s saying anything important, he can try again later.

When they step into the warmth of the station, Akira exhales as if they’d just run a marathon, and tears his mask off his face to catch his breath.

Goro glares, and huffs, “Put your damn mask back on.”

Akira at least has the decency to look startled, like he’d completely forgotten the mask had any purpose besides preventing him from breathing properly. He slides the elastic back over his ears, and though he’d seemed about to speak up when he’d taken the mask off, now he hesitates. Probably, Goro would guess, because the station is so eerily quiet. Everyone who walks by seems to be doing so as quickly as possible, heads down and quiet as can be.

Goro and Akira are silent on the way back to Goro’s apartment, which is why it takes until they’re in the courtyard for Goro to realize that Akira has, indeed, followed Goro to his apartment.

“Why didn’t you go back to Yongen-jaya?” Goro asks.

“Right,” Akira says, not meeting Goro’s gaze. “About that—”

Akira’s phone rings. He hurries to pick it up, waves at Goro to go on ahead and unlock the downstairs door. Goro glares at the non-answer, but starts up the stairs anyway.

“Hi, Sojiro. Yeah, I’m fine. No, I’m with Akechi right now.”

A pause. Then— “Right, about that,” and that’s the second time Goro’s heard those words in exactly that tone. Truly, he’s eager to hear what Akira has to say _about that._

“Morgana will need to stay with you. No, I don’t know how you’ve managed to pick up so many strays. That one especially, I really couldn’t tell you.” Akira’s thrown himself on Goro’s couch, shoes and coat and all, like he fucking lives there.

“Right. So Morgana will have to take that spare room you have. There’s really not a lot more space.”

A pause. Then— “Sojiro, no, no one is going to stay under quarantine for weeks in that attic. No, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, I’ve enjoyed my time there quite a bit. Yes, I’m extremely grateful. No—Sojiro, it doesn’t have a shower. No, the bath house isn’t going to be open! That’s gotta be coronavirus breeding grounds number one. No way it’ll be allowed to stay open.”

Another break, before Akira’s voice gets a little more serious. “Alright, yeah. There is another reason, and it’s that I’m friends with, like, half of Tokyo at this point. You don’t really leave Yongen-jaya, and Morgana’s basically a housepet with how much he stays home, but I’ve been all around the city recently, and I haven’t been shy about being in close proximity with some of—no, like, _hanging out_ close proximity, not like that.

“What I’m trying to say is, I have a much higher risk of catching the virus, and I really don’t want to transmit it to you or Morgana. It’s not supposed to be so bad for people my age, no, but it’s more deadly the older you are. And you’re, what, 85?” The voice on the other end of the line shouts loudly enough that Goro can hear it from the kitchen, where he’s making tea and not really hiding the fact that he’s listening in. He can’t see it, but he can guess exactly what sort of small, self-satisfied smirk Akira’s wearing right now.

“Well, anyway,” he finally says, a laugh still under his breath. “What I’m saying is it doesn’t make sense for me to stay with you guys. So I’ll be staying with Akechi instead.”

Goro can neither confirm nor deny that he makes any sort of ungodly screech following that decree; all he knows is that he is suddenly on top of Akira on the couch, clawing at his face and desperately trying to grab the phone while shouting at the receiver, “No, he is not!”

“Sorry, Sojiro, pretty loud next door neighbors,” Akira says, pushing Goro’s face away with his hand and using his other to cradle the phone to his ear. “Yeah, don’t worry,” and Goro leaps for the phone again but Akira is too quick for him, rolling off the couch in a way that should send him tumbling to the ground but which he somehow makes smooth, the fucker. “Sorry, I have to help Akechi with something, but—we’ll talk through more details tomorrow, okay? Stay safe, give Morgana my love, bye.”

When Akira finally hangs up the phone, he has the decency to give Goro a shameful, pleading look, his face flushed all over.

“Goro—”

“What the fuck!”

“Listen, I’m really sorry, I should—”

“Shouldn’t have told such an unfortunate lie, yes, because you aren’t staying with me, you are going back to your trashy little attic and you will stay there until the pandemic is over or you _die,_ I don’t care.”

“Goro—”

“And what, exactly, gave you the right to presume that I would _possibly_ —”

“Goro!” Akira is suddenly very close, and he’s looking up at Goro with his big pleading eyes and blinking his long, dark eyelashes, and Goro is absolutely fucked, because that look successfully shuts him up.

“I’m really sorry, Goro. I really meant to ask, and I got ahead of myself, and I’m sorry. I understand if you really, truly don’t want me to stay.”

Akira sighs. “But you’re the only one who knows why I can’t stay with them. You get why that'll just be too uncomfortable and why I can’t really explain it to them. And I thought that, even if the city’s locked down, we could maybe make some progress on defeating Maruki by staying together.”

After a moment where Goro’s still glaring down at him, he adds, “Also, the cafe really, really does not have a shower, and yours looks very nice.”

Goro puts a hand to his forehead, pulls at his bangs in frustration. “You can stay tonight. Then you have to figure something better out. One night, that’s all you get.”

Akira beams at Goro, and Goro knows he’s already lost.

The next day, Akira doesn’t bring up leaving, so Goro doesn’t bring it up, either.

The day after that, Akira tells Goro he’s heading back to Leblanc. When he returns an hour later with a duffle bag full of clothes, Goro wants to pretend he wasn’t expecting it, wants to pretend it’s out of the temporary kindness of his heart, and that he can send Akira back to his attic any time he wants.

But there isn’t much use pretending, is there? 

And that’s how Akira Kurusu and Goro Akechi ended up quarantining together during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

* * *

It’s Monday.

“It’s Monday,” Akira announces out of the blue. He’s still in his pajamas and doesn’t look like he’s planning to get out of them any time soon, but all Goro can say for himself is at least he changed into a different pair of sweatpants and a different t-shirt, so he chooses not to say anything at all. There’s already coffee in the glass carafe. The beans and grinder and filters that Akira stole from Leblanc are resting in their new homes on Goro’s extremely limited kitchen countertop space. Not that Goro ever used that extremely limited kitchen countertop space for anything, though, so even he has to admit that Akira taking over the space is a strict improvement.

“Mm. Indeed,” Goro responds, grabbing the cup of coffee and holding it to his forehead, where a headache is starting to form.

“And, wasn’t Monday…”

Akira doesn’t seem inclined to finish that sentence any time soon, so Goro just rolls his eyes and keeps tending to his headache, because it’s too early to try to read Akira’s mind.

“Maruki told us to meet him back at the palace today.”

Goro nearly drops the mug. _Shit._ Between figuring out how to fit two people into his apartment and getting through the day without murdering his new roommate, Goro had—well, not exactly forgotten about the uncertainty of his existence, but lost track of the fact that its determination had a deadline.

“But don’t worry!” Akira says. “I asked for an extension.”

Goro gapes at Akira for a solid ten seconds.

“An...extension.”

“Yup, look, it’s fine.” Akira slides his phone across the tiny table for Goro to see. It’s a chat window, and though it’s full of messages, most seem to be from several months ago. Most, except for the last two.

**Akira** : hey maruki-sensei, can we have an extension on the palace thing, covid stuff has really made it tricky to go in and meet you.

**Maruki:** Certainly, Kurusu-kun. Please stay healthy!

An extension. Like it’s a fucking homework assignment.

Akechi goes back into his room. His “room” is really just a windowless corner of the living room separated by a sliding door, which just barely lets realtors legally boast about this “true one-bedroom apartment in the heart of Tokyo.”

It nevertheless suffices for Goro’s present purpose, which is saying, “That’s enough for today, we can try again tomorrow,” and throwing the sliding door shut.

* * *

It’s Saturday.

“This is fucking stupid,” Goro says. They’re sitting next to each other on the couch, Goro on his laptop and Akira hunched over a notebook. “These assignments are an absolute joke.”

“Hey, at least your school is all fancy with those digital assignments and video lectures. I had to go into school to pick up these piles of worksheets, and that’s it, that’s school. Ta dah.” Akira throws a few of the papers in the air for emphasis.

And why is Goro doing homework, when he doesn’t even really exist so surely he’s allowed to consider school the least of his problems, when what he really needs to be doing is making any progress at all on getting back to reality?

That’s right, because he’s a coward. He hasn’t told Akira the somewhat important fact that he’s not real, though surely that little detail would convince Akira that homework is really not something to worry about at the moment. No, instead, he let Akira pester him that he should study, and was dragged into working on homework. Fucking delightful.

* * *

It’s Tuesday.

The line to get groceries is notable, for one, because it exists, something that Goro has truly never seen at the rundown little convenience store closest to the apartment. And two, because it extends well down the block, since everyone is spaced so far apart.

Of course, for the first day in over a week that Akira and Goro are leaving the apartment, it had to be freezing out.

They keep themselves occupied by playing a fun little game: Akira will notice someone on the street not wearing a mask, or someone coughing blatantly into the air instead of into their elbow or a handkerchief, and Goro will tell Akira what that person’s palace would be like and what sort of miserable psychotic breakdown he would inflict on them. Akira rolls his eyes at Goro’s dramatic descriptions, but small smiles keep popping up on his face, too, so Goro’s fairly satisfied with himself.

Then, a remarkably drunk man walks by and starts shouting at everyone in line.

“All you people lining up because the government’s convinced you this coronavirus is real.” He cups his hands and shouts. “Wake up, people! You think this is real? They’re tricking you!” He is, of course, not wearing a mask, and he walks up very close to people in line to shout in their faces.

Akira is watching the man uneasily, staring as the man starts to focus his profanities on the women at the front of the line. Then the man starts coughing dramatically in the womens’ faces and laughing at their extreme distress, at which point Akira surges forward.

Goro grabs his arm to pull him back. When Akira turns around and faces Goro with the same determined anger he was about to unleash on that man, Goro hisses, “Don’t be an idiot.” The man gets shouted down and shooed away by other people in line, he leaves, and the moment passes. 

Goro doesn’t think Akira is in the mood for their game any more, so they stand in silence for the rest of the half hour they’re waiting in line.

“Do you think,” Akira finally says once they’re almost at the front of the line, “that every selfish idiot who’s putting people in danger like that is down there in Mementos somewhere, just waiting to be taken down?”

Goro gives Akira a look, telling him to not even _think_ about it.

By the time they get inside the convenience store, there isn’t any bread left, or really much of anything they were looking for. They buy a lot of sweets instead, and call it a day.

* * *

It’s a Thursday, or something.

They’ve played at least three games of chess a day and gone through half the books on Goro’s admittedly somewhat scantily-populated shelves. They’ve done what research they can on Maruki and cognitive pscience from the comfort of Goro’s laptop, which is to say, not much.

Akira video chats with at least one, and usually multiple, of the Phantom Thieves every day. Though it clearly hurts Akira to see them in their false realities, he also seems to realize that, right now, it would do more harm than good to wake them up from that. They’re already dealing with the coronavirus and, in some cases, quarantining themselves with family members who they don’t need to realize are actually dead.

And, in any case, it seems like Akira enjoys it—getting to escape into their fantasy world with them, a fantasy world where even though there’s a pandemic going on, they’re all constantly saying how lucky they are, how fortunate it is to be with their families, and how lucky they are to have each other. It seems inane but nice, and Goro tries not to notice that, on occasion, Akira looks like he might want to cry after the calls.

They’ve played card games and word games and video games on the old console Akira brought over. Akira shows him a lot of cat videos, and smiles so brightly at the ones that scrunch their noses or bat their paws in ways that probably remind him of Morgana. They work out, meaning Akira does pull-ups on a bar that Goro once bought and never used, and Goro watches him straining and grunting and, inevitably, showing a bit of his midriff as he crunches up his legs to try to get the last few reps out. He’s advising Akira on his form, of course.

It’s simultaneously excruciatingly boring and wonderful, and every day, Goro wonders if this is it, if Akira is finally going to say that being in Leblanc's attic would be preferable to living this extremely boring life cramped up with Goro. He feels like it should be a bit of a relief, but all he feels at the thought is dread. If he’s forced to live this false, imprisoned life for however much longer this virus lasts, he at least doesn’t have to do it alone.

He used to take pride in how independent he was, how easy it was for him to constantly be alone. At least now, he doesn’t have to pretend.

He just knows it can’t last forever. Some day, soon, Akira’s going to realize just how much being quarantined with Goro sucks, and he’s going to leave, and Goro’s prison is going to turn into solitary confinement.

“Hey,” Akira calls from the couch. “Chess and coffee in a bit?”

Thankfully, today isn’t that day.

* * *

It’s Sunday? Goro’s pretty sure yesterday was Saturday, which, logically speaking, should make it Sunday, but he isn’t too sure any more.

“How are you boys holding up?”

Maruki is smiling at them patiently from Goro’s laptop screen, and honestly, Goro cannot believe he agreed to this. He chooses to sit there glaring at Maruki on the other side of the screen.

Akira, meanwhile, gives him a tired smile. “You know. Holding up. How about you?”

Did Akira forget the part where this guy is supposed to be the villain, the big bad holding them hostage in a fake reality?

“Oh, as well as I can, I think,” Maruki says. “It’s truly unfortunate that I’ve not been able to make as much progress as I’d have liked in developing the ideal reality, but public safety has to come first.”

“Quick question for you, _doctor,_ ” Goro can’t help but say with a snarl. “Why exactly does your picture perfect world have, you know, a global fucking pandemic in it?”

Maruki gets a kicked-puppy look on his face, but it’s not at all like he’s upset at Goro’s accusation and much more like he’s disappointed in himself. “Truly, I wish I could have prevented it. I unfortunately don’t have that power.”

“What, you could bring me—” Nope, mistake, try again— “You could bring Wakaba Isshiki back from the dead and make a magical cat think he’s always been human, but you can’t handle a little virus?”

Once again, Maruki lowers his head in apology. “You’re right that my powers of actualization are able to change significant elements of the physical world, but that’s based on an individual’s cognition and desires. I’ve been trying, but...I can’t track down everyone with the virus and actualize a world where they and everyone they’ve been in contact with hasn’t contracted it.”

He looks back up at them with a certain fierce determination. “I promise you, though, I _am_ trying. I promised a world where there would be no more suffering, and that is what I will always work towards. Already, I believe I’ve made a difference, and not just with tracking down as many people as I can and erasing the virus. For one, because of actualization, some medical professionals have had a much larger sway in decision making than I believe the government would have given them otherwise. Without that, I don’t think this lockdown would have happened anywhere near as quickly or quite as thoroughly. I truly believe that thousands of lives will be saved because of this.”

And that...well. That sure is something, isn’t it? That even if he and Akira somehow find a way to defeat Maruki and destroy his reality, it’s not just Goro and Wakaba and Okumura who will disappear. The death toll of this virus has already been high and is only getting higher every day. The idea that it could be even worse, and that thousands more will die if they find a way to return to reality?

If he thought he might have a hard time convincing Akira before, it’s sure as hell not going to be any easier now.

“And Ka...Sumire?” Akira asks quietly. “How is she doing?”

Maruki softens again. “She’s well, Kurusu-kun. She is with her mother and father, and I hear she’s been doing what gymnastics she can in her living room, determined not to let this set her back.” He pauses, glances over at Goro, and then continues, “I decided to erase her memory of discovering what you did in the palace. I still intend to give you the choice to choose my ideal reality over your own, and I will not force that choice on you. However, I believed that, in the current circumstance, leaving Yoshizawa to cope with the nature of her reality along with everything else would be...cruel.”

Goro feels his snarl grow deeper, and is about to tell the asshole doctor exactly which part of forcing someone into a reality they didn’t choose is the cruel part.

But then he hears Akira quietly say, “I think that’s for the best.”

Maruki nods solemnly. “Akechi-kun, I know that you in particular do not want to accept my reality, and Kurusu-kun, I don't know if you’ve made up your mind. That said, I don’t believe it would be fair to force you to make that decision now, amidst everything else going on. And given that the more important use of my abilities right now has become using my palace as a laboratory to treat virus patients in my own way, you can rest assured that my previous plans are on hold.”

“Thank you,” Akira says, and they exchange a few more pleasantries before Akira ends the video call. Akira hands the laptop back to Goro, closes his eyes, and leans back into the couch.

Goro watches him in silence for a bit, before he can’t help but burst out with, “Can you believe that solipsistic mother—”

“Goro, please,” Akira says. “I know you have a lot to say. Can I just…” And he looks so, so exhausted. “Please. A few minutes.”

Goro doesn’t really know what to do in response to that, so he mumbles, “I’m going to go to the courtyard and get some air,” pulls on his mask, and slowly walks down the stairs.

But, really—can he believe that solipsistic motherfucker, acting like he’s the world’s savior right now? _Don’t worry, I’m not going to execute my previous plan of overwriting peoples’ realities and denying their free will in order to trap them in my vision of their happiness! I’m just going to overwrite peoples’ realities and deny their free will to mitigate a deadly virus! Much better, right?_

And even just thinking that makes Goro want to break something, rather than think too hard about the fact that, maybe, it is better.

He’s pacing in the empty apartment courtyard, wondering exactly how much time Akira needs, when he feels his phone vibrating in his back pocket.

It's a number he doesn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Akechi-kun,” says the voice he’d just been mocking in his own head.

“How do you have my number, Maruki,” Goro asks bitterly.

“I asked Kurusu-kun, of course.”

“Of course.”

There’s a long silence, because Goro sure isn't the one who has something to say here.

“So,” Maruki finally says, “you’re aware.”

Goro barks a laugh. “Aware that I don’t actually exist? Yes, doctor, somehow I pieced that one together. Don’t know what tipped me off; maybe the fact that my last memory is of bleeding out in my father’s palace, or maybe the fact that all the shit I deserved to die for was somehow magicked away, but yes, somehow, I figured it out.”

Another pause, then a frown in Maruki’s voice when he finally says, “It’s not that you don’t exist, per se. As long as you allow this reality to persist, Akechi-kun, you will be just as real as me or Kurusu-kun or anyone else, because the event that killed you never happened here.”

“All out of the goodness of your heart. How very noble of you.”

Maruki sighs. “I understand the animosity you might feel towards accepting my world, and that is a discussion we can have another time. I simply wanted to ask, for now, if you understood why you were brought here.”

“Well, you’ve convinced yourself that you’re God, and a benevolent one at that, who gives even sinners like me a second chance at redemption, and I should fall to your feet in thanks, oh great savior.”

Maruki doesn’t show any sign of irritation towards Goro; no, instead, he chuckles slightly. “Perhaps you aren’t too far off, Akechi-kun—but I’m not necessarily the one who wanted the chance to save you.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” But with the way Goro’s heart feels like it’s sunk straight through his stomach, he’s fairly sure he knows exactly what it means.

With the way Maruki pauses, it’s clear he expects that Goro’s figured it out. “I’d therefore like to request, for the sake of Kurusu-kun’s mental health, that you not tell him. Not yet. I know this pandemic must already be taking a toll on him, and living with you while also knowing the truth about your existence would be too cruel.”

“Well, that’s the difference between the two of us, isn’t it, doctor? You’ve decided exactly what is and isn’t cruel for others to have to face, and so you make their decisions for them. What you don’t seem to understand is that denying them of their free will and the right to make their own choices— _that’s_ the cruel thing.”

“Ultimately, it is up to you, Akechi. I’m simply asking you to think about it, and to put care into the decision to do so.”

“Goodbye, doctor,” Goro says, and he hangs up, and sinks to the ground, taking deep breaths.

Because the truth is—if he didn’t agree, he would have told Akira already, right?

When he finally returns to the apartment, he finds Akira still sinking into the couch, staring at nothing.

“Hey, Akira,” Goro starts, and Akira looks up at him with such a pained look that all Goro can do is say, “What movie should we watch?”

* * *

When city officials announce what sort of outdoor activities people can safely pursue—solitary activities, maintaining distance, staying off of sidewalks, masked if at all possible—Goro is rather excited at the prospect of taking his bike out.

Akira doesn’t seem to share the excitement, shrugging when Goro asks if he wants to join him. “I don’t have a bike,” he says, “and besides, I don’t really enjoy biking as an activity.”

“Are you just saying that because you never learned how to ride a bike, Akira?”

Akira rolls his eyes. “I can, in fact, ride a bike. But I never saw biking as much more than a way to get from A to B. And,” he says, making a vague hand gesture around, “there aren’t really many point B’s to go to these days.”

Goro figures that Akira probably just wants some time alone. He’s certainly grateful for a bit of alone time with his bike. Not to say that he minds the distinct lack of time alone he’s had recently. Sharing a very small apartment with Akira has been far more pleasant than he could have ever imagined. Akira is possibly the least intrusive roommate imaginable, seeming to know exactly when to fade into the background to give Goro space and when to re-emerge to make Goro laugh or groan or roll his eyes, all of which are equally endearing.

If Goro’s being honest, he’s generally worried that he’s the insufferable one forcing Akira to live with him, given that he sometimes stays up late and watches TV in the living room while Akira’s sleeping on the couch, or that he sometimes gets grumpy when the coffee isn’t made by the time he wakes up, or that he knew how to cook exactly two dishes before Akira moved in, both of which involve eggs and not much else, and neither of which he volunteers to make particularly frequently. Then again, Akira’s standards for insufferable roommates must be desperately low if he lived with Morgana for most of the year, so Goro figures he’s probably fine. And it’s his apartment, so it’s not like Akira has any right to complain.

Anyway. Akira probably just wants time alone, and Goro’s happy to give it to him, and it’s nice, getting out of the apartment and feeling his muscles burn a bit. The streets are eerily empty of cars and pedestrians, and he bikes down the middle of the road just because he can. He stays out a little longer than he might have intended, but the weather is rather unseasonably lovely, and the air is crisp as it hits his face, and he feels generally happier than he has in weeks. He’s excited to tell Akira, too, to see if he wants to go on a ride with him tomorrow—

Only when he enters the apartment, he finds Akira exactly where he was when he left him: slumped on the couch, scrolling through his phone. It’s started to get dark, but Akira hasn’t even turned the lights on.

Goro puts down his keys, takes off his coat and shoes, then finally flips on the living room lights—and Akira looks up at him, startled, like he hadn’t even noticed Goro come back in.

“You’re back already?” Akira asks, his voice still gravelly like he’s barely woken up even though it’s nearly six in the evening.

Over the next few days, Goro asks Akira if he wants to go biking the next few times he goes out, too, but the answer is always the same. Eventually, he stops asking.

* * *

“Akira, Ryuji texted me earlier this morning.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, it was extremely weird and I would greatly prefer if it never happened again.” Goro slides his phone over to Akira across the table, where Akira’s been idly pushing his breakfast across his plate without eating much of it.

On the screen is the conversation he’d had with Sakamoto earlier.

**Ryuji:** yo

**Ryuji:** yo yo yo

**Ryuji:** akechi

**Ryuji:** akechi you there

**Ryuji:** hellooooooooo

**Ryuji:** akeeeechi

**Goro:** Yes, hello, Sakamoto. I was in the middle of a bike ride, but had to stop given that my phone kept incessantly vibrating and distracting me from riding, which could have been extremely hazardous.

**Ryuji:** oh hey dude

**Ryuji:** akira still crashing at your place?

**Goro:** Yes.

**Ryuji:** cool

**Ryuji:** cool cool coooooool

**Ryuji:** well uh could you let him know that he’s missed a few of our calls?

**Ryuji:** like it’s totally cool if he’s busy with other stuff!

**Ryuji:** but just we miss him and want to know if everythings okay

**Ryuji:** also morgana really wants to know if you’re a better cuddler than him

**Goro:** I’ll be sure to let Akira know you asked after him.

Akira smirks as he hands back Goro’s phone. “Aw, he’ll be so disappointed to know I haven’t gathered any cuddling-related intel for comparison.”

Goro rolls his eyes, but then says, as nonchalantly as possible, “You’ve missed their calls?”

Akira shrugs. “Once or twice. There are a bunch of recurring calls every week that they’ve scheduled, not everyone can make it all the time. I was just busy during a couple of them.”

_Busy with what?_ Goro wants to ask. Akira hasn’t been doing much homework, though to be fair, neither has Goro, and all in all he’s pretty grateful he and Akira are on the same page as far as that goes. And they still play chess and read and watch TV together sometimes, but a lot more of the time Goro isn’t sure quite what Akira’s doing, aside from just...nothing.

Still, it’s not worth bothering Akira about it. It seems pretty reasonable to him that, after a while, listening to his friends ramble on about their perfect little fake lives would get grating. (It seems pretty reasonable to him that it would have been grating to listen to them at all even before their lives became fake and perfect, but that’s a different matter entirely.)

After a while more of both of them scrolling on their phones and sipping their coffee, Akira says, out of the blue, “You’d let me know if you wanted me to leave, right?”

Goro laughs. “I don’t know, would I? You invited yourself to live here more or less without asking, why should I assume you’d listen if I wanted you to leave?”

Akira chuckles slightly, but doesn’t respond.

So Goro fills the silence with, “Really, it’s the same to me either way, if you want to stay here or go back to your attic. Though you did make the compelling argument before that only one of those options has a shower, so. I can see the attraction here.”

“The shower is a big draw,” Akira says, nodding.

And once again, Akira seems like he’s going to let the conversation fade after that as he goes back despondently to his phone, so with an anxiety Goro’s not sure he can totally place, he says, “Of course, you could always move back in with Sakura, go back to normal. Better than normal, even—I’m sure Maruki’s programmed him to love the idea of you squatting in his domicile forever. And Morgana clearly misses sleeping with you, with the added bonus that Maruki’s helping him ignore the inherent homo-eroticism therein.”

If Goro was hoping for a laugh or an eyeroll or, really, anything, he doesn’t get it. Instead, Akira just says, quietly and uneasily, “Yeah. Back to normal.”

Goro has no idea what Akira’s thinking, what he seems to want. So after a while of silence he says, “You know, somehow, even in this world where I was never Shido’s hitman, he’s still paying for this apartment. So. Maybe there’s something poetic about the two of us taking advantage of that and wasting any money he has left on our heating bills while he’s in prison.”

That finally gets a chuckle out of Akira. “That’ll show him.”

* * *

Goro has thought, rather a lot, about the prospect of losing his virginity to Akira Kurusu.

The exact how’s and why’s of the situation he imagined varied dramatically throughout the year, of course. Back when Akira was just “the upsettingly attractive leader of the group that’s stirring shit in the Metaverse,” there was a good deal of dashing cops-and-robbers-type fantasy, all very dramatic and stylish.

When he met a messy-haired boy who bumbled through a defense of the Phantom Thieves at the TV studio, he imagined more of a classic schoolboy-romance thing, one that always seemed to feature those ugly-as-sin school uniform pants that Akira nevertheless looked incredible in. (That fantasy always felt the most pathetic, because his favorite part of it wasn’t imagining the breathless first kiss where their friendship turned into something more, but the part before that, where he got to have a friend in the first place.)

When he first realized Kurusu worked in the coffee shop, he’d imagined hasty hookups in that dingy bathroom; when he first saw Akira’s room, it switched to even grimmer scenarios on that pathetic futon-on-crates he called a bed. After that, as Joker and Akira finally became one in his mind, things got a little more complicated, a little more exciting. He imagined trysts in saferooms and kissing Akira after holding him up at gunpoint in the Metaverse, and on one particularly guilty occasion, he thought about what it’d be like in the interrogation room where he planned to stage the suicide.

After he killed Akira, of course, he felt a lot more sick to his stomach and a lot less aroused when he thought about the Phantom Thieves’ leader. And the time between when he learned Akira was alive and died himself hadn’t left much time for fantasizing—but coming back from the dead into a reality where he and Akira were tied by fate to fight for justice certainly did.

Suffice to say, his imagination had given him a lot to work with.

And even then, he’d never quite imagined _this_ :

He walks out of the shower after a bike ride. In front of him is an especially messy-haired Akira who hasn’t bathed in at least two days, who turn his glassy eyes from the T.V. to Akechi and says, in the most unaffected tone, “Can I give you a blowjob?”

Goro’s pretty sure everything above where his towel is tied off above his waist must turn a sudden, violent red.

It takes him a good few seconds to control his sputtering before he can collect himself enough to get pissed, but finally he grits out, “Listen, if you’re horny, go jack off in the shower like everyone else in the world with a roommate does.”

In the time it took for him to recover, Goro didn’t realize that Akira had gotten very, very close to him. “But I don’t want to jack off in the shower. I want to give you a blowjob.”

And, well. When he puts it like that, and is already looking up at Goro with those stupid long eyelashes and pretty lips and is already more or less getting on his knees, what can Goro do besides turn his head to the side and say, “Fine, whatever,” and try not to come instantaneously when Akira looks happier and more excited than he’s been in weeks?

Because, listen, Goro will tell himself later, once Akira’s off in the shower and he’s left alone, trying to figure out why he feels kind of shitty after getting what he’s pretty sure he’s wanted for a very long time. _Akira’s lonely,_ he’ll tell himself, _and you’ve been selfishly hogging him and locking him up in your apartment, taking advantage of this whole coronavirus situation for your own benefit. Right now, you’re just a convenient replacement for the dozens of people he’s used to seducing around Tokyo, probably._

And in the days to come, when he’s wondering if he’s allowed to enjoy this so much or if he should still be feeling guilty, he’ll remind himself: _you won’t be around for much longer, anyway, and then he’ll be free of you._

For now, though, he’s tangled up with Akira in bed, his towel long since abandoned somewhere on the living room floor. He’s still trying to catch his breath, trying to keep a dumb smile off his face from the way that Akira’s lazily curled up against him and playing with his hair. He tries to make his voice haughty and severe when he says, “I’m not reciprocating until you take a shower,” and he has to resist the urge to reciprocate anyway when Akira beams at him and tells him it’s okay, this was all he really wanted.

And that’s how Akira Kurusu stopped sleeping on the couch at Goro Akechi’s apartment during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

* * *

Not all that much changes, and in some ways Goro’s grateful for that. His routine stays more or less the same—coffee, breakfast, exercise, grocery shopping, TV, chess—just with more making out in between. A strict enhancement, in that sense.

The thing is—well. The thing is that Goro knows he’s only screwing himself over, because some stupid part of him can’t help hoping that it _means_ something. If he could just destroy that part—if he could accept that Akira’s only hooking up with him because he’s bored and horny and Goro is, quite literally, the only option—then things would be fine. But as it is, that tiny and stupid part of him continues to hope it means something to Akira.

And if hooking up with Goro meant something to Akira, then the fact that Akira went from never kissing Goro to frequently kissing Goro should make him happier. Right?

Well, Akira definitely does not seem to be feeling better.

(Adequate evidence, Goro decides, that whatever they have between them can’t mean much to Akira, and that he’s not even serving as an effective distraction or emotional crutch. And why, Goro tries to remind himself, did he expect anything else?)

It’s hard for Goro to focus solely on how shitty it makes him feel, though, because mostly, he’s just worried.

Akira hardly leaves the house. When Goro asks if he wants to go get groceries, Akira says no. If Goro asks why, he says it’s because he doesn’t want to risk getting or giving the coronavirus. 

(And maybe that fear of this deadly virus is quite natural. Perhaps Goro would understand a little bit better if he didn’t know his life was entirely disposable at the moment; as it is, Goro dying from coronavirus would be less a tragedy and more righting the wrongs of Maruki’s reality. If he started showing coronavirus symptoms, it’d be easy enough for him to jump off a bridge rather than take up a hospital bed.)

Goro has no problem being the one to go out to get groceries and to go downstairs to get the mail. But it’s worrying, seeing the obnoxiously fearless Joker cowering inward at the thought of leaving the apartment. Just like it’s worrying that Akira only picks up half his calls and that, on the ones he does pick up, he doesn’t say much. He’s still a good actor, of course, putting on his suave and confident persona whenever he picks up the phone, but at the end of each call he collapses back onto the couch like his strings were cut and he’s left in a crumpled pile.

“It’s weird,” Akira says one day while they’re laying in Goro’s bed. They woke up, brushed their teeth, and then somehow found themselves back in bed, and now it’s been a few hours of just laying there. “You’d think that I’d be used to huge, world-changing events that are totally out of my control by now.”

“No, those were always about you in the end, too,” Goro says. “Even when the stakes were the world’s survival based on an all-powerful god’s whims, it ultimately came down to you and me, didn’t it?” He shrugs. “For once, the world ending isn’t about us at all.”

“No. But…” Akira trails off, looking pained. “Even Maruki’s helping, you know? No matter how fucked you think the things he’s doing with his powers are, even you have to see that he’s able to help. And what are we doing?”

“Nothing. We’re doing nothing because there’s nothing we can do, Akira. Because sometimes it’s a global pandemic and we have to get used to not being the centers of the universe and being able to fix or fuck up everything.”

He can’t let Akira start thinking that way. 

Because Goro’s seen the way Akira watches the news on the little living room TV, how he’s always checking on his phone to watch the death tolls going up and up and up. He hears how, at the end of every call he has the energy to make, Akira is always sure to ask how everyone is doing, how their families are coping, and if they need anything—to offer help that he knows he can’t provide.

Above all else, Goro knows that the only reason he’s even alive right now is to fulfill Akira’s one fundamental urge: to save, to save, to save.

There’s not much Akira can do to save anyone right now, is there?

So later that afternoon, Goro goes on a walk, and once he’s far from the apartment, he takes a deep breath and pulls out his phone. 

It occurs to Goro that, just maybe, he might really like Akira, because he’s willing to do the worst thing imaginable for Akira’s sake. There’s exactly one person who both understands the situation Akira’s in and has the qualifications to help him, so as much as he would rather die than do so, Goro dials the unknown number that had called him weeks ago.

“Akechi-kun! What a pleasant surprise,” says Maruki’s voice on the other end of the line, and Goro has to take a deep, deep breath to keep himself from hanging up then and there. Then another deep breath to get out what he needs to ask.

“Given that your world domination plans seem to be. On hold. Would you be so kind as to offer some. Therapeutic. Advice”

* * *

Goro doesn’t force Akira to talk about his problems with Dr. Maruki. That would be, to use the doctor’s favorite word, _cruel._ After all, one of the major issues Akira’s facing is the loss of his deep relationships with his friends, and since Maruki seems to think that’s something Akira should happily accept, Goro suspects he won’t have much useful advice there.

Instead, Goro asks about the other things he’s noticed: the staying in bed all day, the endlessly watching the news and following death tolls, the fear.

It’s a little insulting, honestly—that is, Goro feels insulted on Akira’s behalf. Because, while he might have been the one to tell Akira that this wasn’t about them and all their godly specialness, he can’t help feeling that Akira is, and should always be, special. His problems are on the scale of the world’s endangerment, and the solutions he has to find involve fighting gods and negotiating humanity’s existence. To have his problems reduced to something that can be addressed with a daily schedule and engaging hobbies and talking through his sadness—it all reduces Akira to something so...small. Ordinary.

And that’s ridiculous, because Akira Kurusu is many insufferable things—overly-confident, hyperattractive, the center of the literal goddamn universe—anything but small and ordinary.

So Goro will do whatever it takes to take on these small and ordinary problems for him, so that Akira can go back to being insufferable and self-centered and everything that makes Goro, maybe, love him.

When Goro gets back to the apartment, it’s several hours later, and he’s joined by a half-dozen shopping bags hanging off his arms. He switches on the lights to find Akira curled up on the couch and squinting violently, trying to adjust to the light’s assault on his eyes.

“Get up,” Goro says.

Akira’s already turned back to his phone, hunching over himself to block out as much of the light as possible from his eyes.

Goro goes to loom over him. “I said get up.”

“I’m reading something,” Akira mumbles.

“Nope, up, up,” and he bodily drags a protesting Akira off the coach. “Help me unpack this stuff.”

Akira pokes into one of the bags, and pulls out a small baking tin. He pokes into another, finds all the pantry essentials that Goro’s never in his life owned.

“What is all this shit, Goro?”

“We’re making some goddamn banana bread. It’s going to be fucking delicious. Go wash your hands.”

* * *

The banana bread is horrendous and they throw most of it out.

* * *

“Akira, wake up. Get out of bed.”

“No, Akira, I’m serious, get out of bed. Now. Come on, let’s make coffee.”

* * *

“Go put on some real clothes. No, sweatpants aren’t real clothes. Your jeans don’t smell too bad, put those on.”

* * *

“We’re going on a walk. Yes, a walk. Yes, ‘we.’ We’re leaving in five minutes, come on.”

* * *

“Akira, come on.”

* * *

“Go take a shower. It has to have been at least two days since your last one.”

* * *

“Akira, get off your phone, you’ve been on it for an hour now.”

* * *

“Akira—”

_“Goro, what the fuck is your problem?”_

* * *

Akira’s shouting. There’s a liveliness in his expression that Goro hasn’t seen in a while, but Goro can’t quite celebrate, because it’s manifesting in pure anger towards him.

Goro swallows, but tries to keep his composure. “I have no problems. I was just going to let you know it’s time to start making dinner—”

“Why have you been pushing me around all day?”

“I—haven’t been pushing you around, Akira, I’ve just been letting you know what you should be doing.”

“And why in hell do you think you have the right to do that?”

“Well,” Goro says, taking a measured breath, “if the past, oh, six weeks or so are any indication, you’re not going to do anything of your own accord.”

Akira’s glaring absolute daggers at him now. “And? What exactly is your point here, detective?”

Goro glares right back. “My _point_ is that if you aren’t going to take care of yourself then someone’s going to have to do it for you.”

A humorless laugh. “For someone who was all up Maruki’s ass for making decisions for other people, you sure are a goddamn hypocrite, thinking you can make those decisions for me.”

Akira is truly staring down at him now, the way he would stare down a particularly cretinous shadow, and that look stirs something in Goro. “ _Maruki,”_ he says carefully, “is trying to deprive people of free will. That’s not what I’m doing, but I do deeply apologize I’m depriving you of your right to be a fucking idiot and not do anything all day.”

_Oh,_ he thinks, noticing his firsts clenched tightly and his voice rising. _I’m getting angry with him. That’s—_

Akira barks a bitter laugh at him. “Since we’re on the topic of hypocrisy and of being an idiot, let me ask you something, Goro: since when does anything about this world matter to you? It’s all just fake bullshit, right? Then why _should_ I do anything at all? Why should I care?”

“You should _care_ because you’re fucking depressing to watch, okay? You’re supposed to be better than this.”

Akira’s eyes widen, before his face goes cold and stony. “Oh,” he says, low and harsh, “so it’s just about being good enough for you. It’s just about being what you want to see. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint. Maybe I should just go, and you could ask Maruki for a world where I’m perfect for you.”

Part of Goro realizes they’re talking past each other. But the more scared part latches onto what he just heard and panics, and all he can think is, _Don’t leave, don’t leave,_ and that turns into a shout. “You’ve been free to leave this whole time! I’m only here to be useful to you, after all. And if you’ve had enough of using me for sex and my goddamn shower, then maybe you could just say so, and go.”

“What are you—”

“You’re right, okay? This world doesn’t matter, and I’m the least important part of this whole farce, so if you’re done using me then I bet Maruki would agree there’s no point in me being here. And you should just. Go.”

Goro walks into the bedroom, pulls the sliding door shut, and locks himself away.

Eventually, Akira leaves. It doesn’t seem like he knows what else to do.

* * *

Back in reality—the reality where Goro was a murderous pawn for Shido—he was invited to a lot of dumb parties where everyone thought it was incredibly amusing to ply the high school kid with alcohol, and some of that alcohol ended up in Goro’s apartment.

He’s not sure how Maruki justifies the presence of alcohol in his apartment in this supposedly perfect universe, but who cares? Because it’s just where Goro left it in the old reality, in the furthest depths of one of the closets.

Akira’s been too nice to poke through his things, of course, and having Akira here gave him something of an incentive to act like a normal, functional human being, so he’d more or less forgotten about the booze.

That incentive walked out the door a while ago, now, and Goro no longer has any reason to pretend to be functional, so he might as well—

Half an hour and more than a few shots later, Goro gets a call.

“Is there something going on with you and Maruki’s world that you haven’t told me?”

It’s a bit hard for Goro to concentrate, to be honest, but he knows that the muffled voice is Akira’s with a face mask, and he knows that he might have fucked up earlier and said more than he should have, so he just says, “No.”

“Liar. Do we want hot soba for dinner?”

“...What?”

“Hot soba. This place I passed looks like it just opened. Takeout only, of course. It might be nice to eat something we didn’t have to cook.

“Where are you, Akira?”

“Uh,” and Akira reads off some street crossings that Goro doesn’t recognize.

“And why are you there.” 

“It’s just what my phone said was the best route to walk back to Leblanc.”

“You…” Goro starts, and he looks at the whiskey, considers another shot. “You were going to walk back to Leblanc.”

“Yeah, it was going to take about three hours. But then I saw this soba and thought you might want some. And also, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on with you, so it makes more sense to go back and ask.”

Goro tells him to do whatever he wants.

Another half hour passes, by which point Goro is really starting to feel the booze and is wondering if today is just going to be one bad decision after another, when Akira walks in the door.

“Your glasses are all foggy,” Goro says.

“Yeah, it happens when you’re wearing a face mask with glasses.”

“But you don’t need to wear the glasses. They’re fake glasses.”

Akira shrugs and takes the mask off, but not the glasses. He walks over to the table and notices the whiskey bottle that Goro hadn’t bothered to hide.

“I was wondering if you were ever going to share that with me,” he says, and he takes a swig straight from the bottle. His face screws up in the abject disgust that Goro had long since learned to hide when drinking in front of others, but Akira is shameless in his clear revulsion.

And why did Goro think he’d be able to keep any secrets here, again? This is Joker, who seems to have some sort of third eye for shit to steal in the Metaverse. His illicit alcohol stash is nothing.

After a while, Goro mumbles, “I panicked.”

“You panicking involves a lot of shouting at me.”

Goro looks down. “I didn’t know what to do. You’re always the one who’s pulled together and in control.”

Akira shrugs. “I don’t think I’m wrong in reacting the way I am, though. The problems I’m used to taking on are ones I can solve. I’m completely powerless against this. People are dying and reality is broken and there’s absolutely nothing I can do. Why _should_ I act like everything’s normal?”

Akira pauses, then looks directly at Goro, and asks, “I would have thought you’d agree with that more than anyone.”

“Me?”

Akira doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes his time pulling out the containers of noodles and hot broth and tempura onto the counter. It’s only then, once he’s facing away from Goro and staring at the food, that he says, “You know, I’ve been pretty dumb.

“I’ve had so much time to try to figure out how you could possibly be here. We were there when you died, and suddenly you reappeared. I’ve had months to think about what happened and how you could be here. But I never thought about it too seriously and refused to put too much thought into it. I think part of me was afraid the answer was that you aren’t. Here, that is.”

Finally, Akira turns back to Goro. His look is all certainty and determination, the look of Joker walking into a battle he knows he’s going to lose.

“Am I right? You really did die. You’re only here because Maruki brought you back.”

Goro doesn’t know what to do. The alcohol certainly isn’t helping him figure it out. So he doesn’t say anything at all.

Finally, Akira says, quietly, “You’ve been keeping that secret an awfully long time.”

“I—” Goro says, and falters, then clears his throat. “Yes, I suspect that I’m just like Wakaba and Okumura, a temporary artifact of this false reality. And Maruki more or less confirmed that for me.”

Akira closes his eyes for a moment. “Okay.” He holds his hands over his eyes and takes a few long, shuddering breaths, and Goro is utterly useless, not knowing what he could possibly do. So he does nothing, and finally, Akira lifts his head again, looks straight at Goro, and nods. “Okay.”

He studies Goro for a while, saying nothing. Then, “Okay. I guess what I want to know is…back at the beginning of all this. Before the virus, and right when it started. You imagined we’d storm Maruki’s palace and take back our reality, and that was what you had to fight for. Fine.

"But then this virus spread, and quarantine started, and it became pretty clear that we wouldn’t be able to take down Maruki for a long time. And you made it very, very clear that you’d never want to live in a false reality. So then—why are you…”

“Living?” Akechi suggests wryly.

Akira winces. “Not like that, but. Kind of? I mean, if you reject this entire reality, if you hate everything about it, then why are you...going for bike rides? And playing chess, and watching dumb TV with me, and baking horrible banana bread? If there’s no point to any of this for you, and you hate it all, them why…”

Akira trails off, like he doesn’t know quite what he’s asking or what kind of answer he wants.

And Goro isn’t sure he knows, either. Or, rather, there’s only one answer he can think of, really, and it’s such a non-answer so as to be worth nothing.

He spends some time trying to fight through the viscous mess of thoughts that the alcohol’s left him with, and Akira seems sad but accepting that he might never get an answer. And that’s not very good, not at all, so before he even has anything to say, Goro starts talking, just to keep that defeated look off of Akira’s face.

“As far as I can tell,” Goro starts, frowning as his words come out a bit sloppier than he expected them to. He goes a bit slower, trying to get each of them right. “I’m still my own person. Maruki said that the change he made was erasing the event that killed me before. He didn’t create a new Goro Akechi from scratch, or from his own mind. Supposedly, I’m the real one, and my thoughts are my own.”

Akira nods like he understands, but the furrow of his brow makes clear that he has no idea how this relates to anything they were talking about, and fuck you, Akira, he’s getting there, and he might have grumbled that part out loud, which might explain why Akira is laughing just a bit at him, which, of course, only makes Goro glare at him. “Just—give me a second, okay. That’s what I think is true. But I don’t know it for a fact.

“It’s possible my thoughts aren’t mine at all, is what I’m saying. It’s possible that I’m just saying whatever Maruki programmed me to, and that he decided to make me all cheesy and stupid for some reason, and that’s not my own fault. So, I—you have to remember that, okay? Before I say anything else, you have to know that maybe it’s not me saying this at all, maybe it’s fucking Maruki, okay?”

Akira’s starting to smile. “Okay. Plausible deniability. None of what you say can be held against you, maybe it’s not you at all.”

“Right,” Goro says, glad he’s getting through, but how infuriating that Akira seems to find this funny, he’ll need to make himself a little more clear— “And this isn’t—you aren’t allowed to take it the wrong way, because your ego doesn’t need more inflation.” When Akira smiles at him fondly, he glares again, and says, “I’m being serious, this isn’t about you, this is just me trying to explain—and since of course you’re going to make it about you, I’m only going to say this once.”

“Okay,” Akira says, standing up.

“And—” And as Akira gets closer to him, it’s increasingly difficult to stay focused, so Goro turns his head to the side so he won’t see Akira’s pretty eyes and pretty lips, because he needs to _focus._ “And it’s actually all your fault,” Goro says, a little more petulantly than he intends. “You forced yourself into the apartment, and acted so pathetic about having a shower, I didn’t really have a choice about any of it.”

“Got it,” Akira says, and he’s smiling like he’s won something, which must mean Goro’s already lost, so he spits out bitterly—

“It’s you, okay? The only reason I’m willing to tolerate any of this is you, okay, are you happy—”

And Akira’s grabbing Goro’s face firmly and kissing him fiercely. They both taste like shitty whiskey, but even shitty whiskey is enough to momentarily shut Goro up.

Only momentarily, though. As soon as Akira pulls his lips away and Goro has an inch of breath to work with, he starts, “To be clear,” and tries to keep his mouth free as Akira fights for another kiss, “it’s still my goal to escape this reality. That’s what’s most important and I’m not going to give that up. It’s just, for now, okay, I don’t really have a choice and so—”

“Got it, Goro,” Akira mumbles, and he’s pulling Goro back against his lips. His hands are grabbing Goro’s hair in a way that’s quickly pushing out any other thoughts Goro might have wanted to share. Akira kisses him and kisses him, and when he whispers, “Thank you,” he’s quick to recapture Goro’s lips before Goro can say anything about that, too. 

* * *

“What are you, a goddamn Shonen Jump protagonist?”

Goro’s not sure he gets the whole picture. The Velvet Room, the sadistic twins, the arcana—the more Akira tries to explain it, the more it feels like something in Goro’s mind is erasing just enough details for him to not understand the full picture.

What he does get is this: Akira’s strength is tied to his bonds with other people. Leave it to Akira to literally subsist on the fucking power of friendship.

Akira’s theory, then, is that going for so long without maintaining those bonds might have been working in the reverse way: sapping his strength, leaving him with nothing. It seems like video calls and texts don’t cut it when it comes to the arcane gods’ expectations, or whatever.

When Goro expresses disgust at whatever god is controlling Akira’s life to the point that his survival can depend on something so trivial, Akira just shrugs.

“Isn’t that the case for everyone, though? I’m pretty sure all humans need some sort of human contact to stay sane. The pandemic’s been hard for a lot of people in that way,” Akira muses. “It’s just a little more literal for me.”

Later, while they’re doing dishes, Goro tries to sound as casual as possible when he asks, “It would probably be better for you if you were staying somewhere else, right?”

“Hmm?” Akira hums, passing Goro a freshly washed plate to dry.

“Well, I imagine these bonds that are so important to maintain are with the other Phantom Thieves.” Then, as disaffected as possible, he shrugs and says, “You should be quarantining with one of them, right? To satisfy the arcana or whatever? Since I’m not part of all that.”

Akira tilts his head, genuinely perplexed. “What would possibly make you think that? You’re one of my most important bonds. Always have been,” and he turns back to scrubbing out a particularly tough stain on a pot.

When Akira tries to explain it to him, the details again seem to slip away like water over smooth stones. Still, there’s one word that sticks in his mind, leaving him smiling when he thinks about it: Justice. He’s Justice.

As they’re falling asleep that night, Goro mumbles, “But will you be okay with just justice?”

“Who the hell knows?” Akira mumbles back, and puts an arm over Goro, pulling him closer. “It’s enough right now.”

* * *

From conception to execution, the plan takes over a month to enact, longer than it used to take the Phantom Thieves to find and destroy some palaces in their entirety.

Most of the time is spent waiting for packages.

Medical supplies are, of course, generally in high demand, and when Akira texts his “friendly local medical professional and drug dealer” to ask if she could send anything over for his “usual purposes,” she asks if he’s actually insane or if he really thinks she’s not using everything she had to help coronavirus patients.

Adequately chastised, they instead order what they need online and deal with the inevitable shortages of stock. All those cleaning sprays they used to use that were so weirdly effective against shadows are, of course, long since gone from store shelves, and need two weeks to ship; for some of the medicines they need, it’s three or four weeks. Meanwhile, a lot of their favorite metaverse snacks are in short supply, so they just snackpile a lot of prepackaged sweet buns.

And then, the last, most crucial piece of the plan. Of course, it’s left to Goro.

He wonders, really wonders, if Akira knows how lucky he is that he’s so cute, before sucking it up and dialing the number.

"Hi, Mrs. Tadachi,” he says in his sunniest voice. “It's Goro Akechi from apartment 5D."

Funny how, once up a time, he based his entire career on being charming and pleasant to people like this, and how now it takes an enormous amount of effort to give even one single fuck. Maybe he’s gotten spoiled by this alternate reality, or maybe just by Akira, with how few fucks he generally has to give these days.

He endures a long, uninterrupted monologue from the grandmotherly old Mrs. Tadachi. She tells him how much she appreciates him calling just to check in on her and how it means the world that he cares for her health; she details all the precautions she’s taking to stay safe, exactly what she thinks the government is doing wrong, and, verbatim, what her little grandkids said last time they video called, before she finally leaves a split second opening. Goro pounces on the opportunity.

“I was wondering,” he says loudly, "if I could borrow your bike."

"Oh, dearie, did something happen to your bike? It's such a lovely one, and you always take such good care of it, carrying it up and down all those stairs to keep it safe. A shame, what this city's come to, that you can't even keep your own bike on the street, but people always want something they don't have to earn, right?—"

"It's for my roommate, actually," he says with a smile, trying to force even the slightest bit of linearity into this conversation. "He doesn't have a bike, and we wanted to go to the park for a picnic, but the subway is, of course, out of the question."

"Yes it is! I saw this news article just the other day about how bad the subway—”

“—So if you’re willing to lend us your bike, we’d really appreciate it!” 

“Well,” she says, pausing to finally take in a word he’s said. “I'm not using it. Just, hm, could you be sure to sanitize it after you're done? I don't know if you have any of those wipes, they've always been out of stock when I go to the store, it's always someone being selfish and getting more than they need—"

"—Absolutely happy to sanitize it, of course. Thank you, Mrs. Tadachi, we'll be sure to have it back by the end of the day."

By the time he hangs up, Akira has been mufflung soft laughs from the couch for a few minutes, and Goro throws his phone at him.

Akira catches it, of course, the bastard. "I don't know when I last saw that fake smile on your face for so many minutes at a time," he says fondly. "You’re terribly out of practice."

They hadn’t told Mrs. Tadachi a complete lie. They do go for a bike ride, and the distance is great enough that they need to take frequent breaks, some of which might qualify as picnics given how long they rest.

Even for Akechi, the ride from his apartment to Shibuya is gruelling; for Akira, who's barely left the house for months, it must be brutal. But Akira doesn't let out a single complaint. He’s reveling in the emptiness of Tokyo, pedaling furiously and laughing like a maniac as he bikes down the middle of once-packed streets the wrong way.

Finally, after two hours of biking and breaks, they reach Shibuya station and activate the app that's been sitting dormant on their phones for months now.

The first thing they notice, upon entering Mementos’ upper layers, is just how bustling it is compared to the station above them.

They suppose it makes sense, given their mission; upon logging on to the Phan Site, they found dozens and dozens of viable Mementos requests. One, a selfish neighbor who keeps hosting huge parties in their apartment, bringing in crowds and crowds of people; another, a greedy bar owner who's secretly kept their place open; and all around, people who’ve repeatedly shown themselves to be too proud or too stubborn to wear masks and stay at home.

They’re a bit overzealous, taking out their first shadow.

Goro might never have been a Phantom Thief in earnest, might not have always agreed with their way of going about changing hearts, but using his powers like this again somehow feels right. When he hears one of their targets monologuing about how they’re better than the coronavirus, it’s an absolute rush to feel the power of his personas pulsing underneath his skin, and when he finally calls for Loki, he can’t control the urge to decimate the shadow with a huge, brutal, thrilling hit.

The best part, though, isn’t seeing his persona rage again, or firing his ray gun, or watching the shadow crumple in defeat.

No, the best part, by far, comes after the shadow is taken down. It’s quiet again, except for Goro and Akira panting heavily from the sudden burst of activity. And when Goro finally looks up at Akira, he sees the Phantom Thief’s face bright with a maniacal smile.

That’s the best part—when Joker comes back.

They can’t go all that far into Mementos without the Mona-bus, and they know it’d be a bad idea regardless without backup. There’s plenty enough to do on the top floors, though, and they’re taking out shadows with ease. With unusual ease, actually.

“Is it just me,” Goro says once they’ve found a safe stopping point to eat some buns, “or are all these enemies far easier than they should be, given that we haven’t done this in months?”

Akira thinks for a bit, then says, “I’d want to check with Mona on this, but do you remember how the shadows down here are sometimes affected by things in the outside world? Things like thunderstorms, or pollen, or...flu season?”

Goro can’t help but laugh. “How appropriate. Let’s hope all the pricks that are down here for screwing around with the coronavirus are suffering from a perfect dose of irony.”

And knowing they deserve it, Goro doesn’t feel a shred of shame about these shadows being the victims of his and Akira’s shameless flirting, as they goad each other into progressively showier and stronger attacks than are strictly necessary.

It’s their own little competition, and as ever, Goro won’t let himself slip. It’s satisfying to be the one to get the last attack in, or to hit a weakness so perfectly from the getgo that the enemy is down before Akira can launch a single attack. Goro doesn’t think he’ll ever stop loving the feeling of challenging Akira and winning.

This feels special, though, because even when he’s not winning—even when it’s Akira who’s masterfully commanding the battlefield and Goro can’t do anything but watch, even when Akira unconsciously shifts into the role of the infallible leader and commands Goro like a pawn on his private chess board—even then, it doesn’t feel like losing.

How could it?

Sure, it might be the case that later that evening, once they’ve called it a day, they realize that they didn’t quite conserve enough energy to make the two-hour bike trip back to Goro’s apartment—that they can just barely, in fact, manage the much shorter ride to Leblanc. 

It might be the case that Leblanc still doesn’t have a shower or a real bed, and the only reason they don’t complain about any of that is from sheer exhaustion, because all Goro can do is crash on the futon in pain, and all Akira can do is collapse on top of him and immediately fall asleep.

It might also be the case that their month of preparation and hours toiling in Mementos makes hardly a dent in the pandemic’s death rates. It might be the case that all they’ve done is make a tough time a little bit easier for just a few people, and that, in the grand scheme of things, that’s nothing.

And it is certainly the case that Goro is still trapped in a reality he never wanted and can’t escape. It’s certainly the case that everything is terrifyingly out of Goro’s control, and he doesn’t know what tomorrow or next week or a month from now will look like.

That all might be the case, and yet—

And yet despite all the reasons he has to be angry and frustrated and afraid right now, Goro isn't, because laying on his chest is the most infuriatingly beautiful boy, who is bruised and fast asleep and so stupidly _happy_ to have made just the smallest of differences in the world.

It’s a terrifying feeling and a marvelous one, realizing that no matter how far this is from anything he wanted, somehow, through it all, he can still be happy.

And that’s how Joker and Crow survived the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

**Author's Note:**

> glad this train wreck is my debut in the persona 5 fandom, i was planning on writing a gentle character study and instead got this. great, perfect, just what i wanted.
> 
> come tell me how dumb this is or which plothole you enjoyed the most:  
> tumblr: shantealeaves  
> twitter: @shantealeaves (i have 2 followers, it's very exciting, you could be lucky number 3)


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